Bellator 95 Ends Season 8 on a TV Ratings High Note, Dwarfing Season 7

Bellator MMA on Thursday closed out its eighth season with a strong showing in the TV ratings.

Bellator 95 was the final event of Season 8, the promotion’s first on Spike TV. Bellator 95 drew an audience of 901,000 viewers, matching Bellator 91 for the second best ratings of the season. Only the season premier, Bellator 85, drew a larger audience.

Bellator 95 featured Pat Curran’s featherweight title defense, as he submitted Shahbulat Shamhalaev in the night’s main event, as well as the season’s middleweight and featherweight tournament finals.

The show peaked at 1,046,000 viewers at its high point.

Bellator has also done well this season with its immediate replays that follow most of the live broadcasts. Bellator 95 was no exception, drawing 328,000 additional viewers for a cumulative total viewership of 1,229,000.

Bellator Season 8 has averaged just under 793,000 viewers per episode, which dwarfs the 162,000 viewers per episode of Season 7 on MTV 2.